Twitter has denied server hacking caused it to force millions of users to reset passwords. The company states that more than 32 million user accounts were locked because they had been subject to theft by a variety of methods.

The dark web information upload of 32 million Twitter user accounts details, including passwords, user names and email addresses has raised concerns about the security of the company's servers and an investigation is underway to ascertain just when and how the information was amassed.

Twitter says the amalgamation of data feel that a breach of this magnitude may be a combination of several breaches, including password disclosures from other companies and that potentially the malware on the machines of some victims continued to steal passwords for a variety of sites.

The company has been cross-checking the data on the dark web against its user accounts and identified accounts needing added protection. These accounts were locked and users were asked to reset passwords as a security initiative.

Users of Twitter that have been impacted by this investigation will have received an email from the company asking them to reset their password, until this is actioned their Twitter account will be locked. The Twitter breaches follow on from the recent LinkedIn user account invalidations which forced 100 million users to reset passwords after their details were discovered for sale online. Even Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, was affected by the LinkedIn breach, and it was confirmed he used the same password to access a number of his online accounts.

Twitter also confirmed separately that around 120,000 user passwords had been identified as "123456" which has highlighted the inherent weaknessed within password protections once more. It's always important to set strong passwords for any online accounts.